Taking 3 year old daughter into Men’s Toilets

[dadtobe22]

I just wanted a sense check here as had a horrible experience earlier.

I’m looking after my 3 year old daughter today. Took her to the zoo this morning and headed to a Toby Carvery for lunch. We were having a lovely day.

On arrival I needed to use the toilet so popped upstairs to the gents and I stood at the end urinal and told my 3 year old daughter to stand next to me by the wall.

A bloke walked in and started huffing and puffing and had a massive pop at me asking if I had “no sense” bringing a little girl into the men’s toilets. I explained I was looking after her on my own today, I couldn’t take her into the women’s and I wasn’t prepared to leave her outside.

At this point he started squaring up to me telling me I was wrong. If I’d stood up to him any further he’d have probably gone for me. I was just thinking about keeping myself and my daughter safe at this point.

I walked away and walked back down towards the restaurant. I go to sit down with my daughter and he makes a menacing bee line for me, raising his voice in the whole restaurant telling me I was wrong and how I’d made him feel uncomfortable. He also started making protestations to staff. He seemed really triggered.

Again I just walked away and took a seat in a quiet corner of the bar away from the main restaurant.

The staff were sympathetic in tone but didn’t offer any explicit support (probably because they were a bit scared of this mad bloke which I
don't blame them for. I think they were just trying to keep the peace).

Was I unreasonable to take my 3 year old daughter into the men’s toilets? I’ve been doing this since she was born and have never had a problem or complaint. I would get it if she was 8 and could wait outside by herself but she’s 3?!

It’s definitely made me re think what I do in the future in this situation.

Yes I can see you were responding to an example of when using a disabled toilet if you were a different sex to the person you support was not an option by saying in your husbands situation it was easy. My response was to explain that his situation was not universal and there were many pairs who didn’t have that option. The vast majority of carers are female and at least half of the people they support are male and need care long past childhood. Personally I think the days of women quietly putting up with inadequate facilities should be long gone and that female carers needs are not being met.

I think most parents would much prefer to watch their own children themselves rather than find a random stranger and trust them to do it.

I didn't see in the post that either he or his DD were disabled.

Is that man not entitled to a safe single sex toilet as women demand? I think many men would feel extremely awkward with a child standing there. Men are bombarded now with how they must behave in front of the opposite sex and it probably shocked him that someone would do this. Maybe he didn't want to be put into the situation where he had his penis out in front of a young female? It's just not a normal thing to do - use a family or disabled toilet.

I don't understand why some people think that disabled toilets should stand unused for 23½ hours a day if there is someone who would value the space and privacy that they provide, or if the others are all full and the disabled is empty.

The OP should have used the disabled, there are many men who would be uncomfortable to the point of not being able to do the deed by the presence of a female child at a urinal.

The guy was a jerk for the way he reacted, though.

Are there really disabled people who would object to a man in this situation using the disabled toilet?

This is just silly. We have single sex toilets to protect people's dignity and safety from the ill intentions of the opposite sex. Neither of these apply with a little child aged 3 who is in there with a parent.

He wouldn't have had his penis out in front of a young girl - anybody, in fact - as urinals are specifically designed so that people can only see the user's back. You may as well express the same worry about women in cubicles having their privates out in front of young boys who are being taken in with their mums, because there's 'only' a closed cubicle door between them.

Lots of things don't cause direct harm, but we don't do them, or wouldn't do them.

It rather depends if it means the disabled facilities are being hogged by able bodied people to the disabled communities detriment. So my personal answer would be, if it means queuing for so long my child can’t attend a venue then please use the toilets designed for you.
Children have ALWAYS gone into to the toilet in line with their carers sex. Small boys in the Ladies and small girls in the Gents is expected.

A lot of people here big fans of drag queen story hour I suspect

Yes, because people with disabilities - including my mum - not only need adaptations but they also need quick access to facilities. Facilities in the UK are bad enough as it is without them being taken up by people who think they are just more convienient toilets.

Gent's toilets have cubicles, and contrary to popular belief it would seem you can't actually see anything when men are using urinals.

I wouldn’t take a little girl in somewhere with a urinal, I’d have used a disabled toilet if at all possible

I couldn’t agree more with you and thanks for articulating this better than I ever could.

By the way, the idea of leaving my 3 year old daughter with a complete stranger is a total non starter. My daughter would be scared in this situation and would always choose to stay with me. I would never let her out my site. And my wife is totally aligned on that by the way.

Pardon my ignorance, but don't/can't disabled people who may need quick access to a toilet do what the rest of us with incontinence problems do - wear pads?

Huge numbers of women in particular, but also men, wear pads.

contrary to popular belief it would seem you can't actually see anything when men are using urinals.

That's not true.

I think it's very sad that so many people see a toilet clearly labelled 'disabled' and automatically view it as a more convenient free-for-all facility for anybody who fancies it.

Maybe they resent the 'privilege' of a disabled person - who frequently will have the 'choice' of either using that toilet or wetting/soiling themselves in public - and want in on it too.

Why on earth would anyone leave their vulnerable 3 year old with a complete stranger? Especially just because they were female and the child was with their dad. There are enough useless fathers without bashing one that actually looks after his child and telling him he should have found a strange woman.

A man not wanting to use the toilet with a toddler in there can wait 30 seconds or leave just like women have to do because adult men invade women's toilets en masse.

Eh? What on earth has that got to do with a little child being taken to the toilet with their parent?

Doesn't matter, he can still use it

An overflowing colostomy bag or a leaking stoma is slightly more inconvenient than a bit of bladder leakage.

Disabled toilets are also raised with handrails and alarms. It isn't just about needing to pee.

Surely pads are designed to catch unavoidable leaks and are not a substitute for a toilet?

Unless they're very vulnerable indeed, most adults with continence issues don't consider pads to be the equivalent of a baby's nappy and just freely and contentedly do their business in them whenever they need to go.

Disabled people already face huge challenges in everyday life - they don't need people to find 'solutions' for them instead of using the toilet as normal, so as to get them out of their toilets to free them up for any non-disabled person who fancies using them.

If everybody can just go around wearing pads and using them as a nappy, we might as well not bother having any public toilets at all.

I understand what you're saying but that level of urgency for a loo is far from restricted to those with disabilities which qualify them for using a disabled loo.

Regarding the alarms, nobody is suggesting that they should use a loo without them, just that if someone wants to use a bigger room with a washbasin enclosed in the cubicle, and no disabled person is in sight who wants it first, then I don't understand why anyone thinks it should stand empty and unused for most of the day.

Especially in this case where a father with a 3 year old would be using it.

In any case, most of them in shops and pubs now seem to have the baby changing too, which reduces the argument for exclusivity even further.

I'm sorry, what? You think disabled people should wear pads because you think everyone else should be able to use the one toilet out of 50 (for example, in shopping centres) made specifically for disabled people?

Yeah, that's reasonable. Do you park in blue badge spaces as well because "they are clearly not being used and my shopping is getting wet"?

Unless you are specifically leaning round, yes it is. A wee girl standing in the corner while her dad has a piss is not going to see anything.

How many do you use? In most, all you would have to do is glance sideways.